


Ley Line Mornings

by mnemosius



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff, M/M, TRK spoilers, adventures in not-quite-reptiles and Ronan's terrible naming habits, and small-time adventures, lazy mornings at the Barns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7719877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosius/pseuds/mnemosius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam may not be bound to Cabeswater anymore, but every so often he can still hear the ley line's call. Sometimes, he finds things. Often, he brings them home to Ronan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ultimately, Adam wasn't surprised that the roads converged in a forest. It made the same sort of sense as everything did these days, even with Glendower and the horror and sheer _living_ of adventure behind him. The old Cabeswater was gone; the ley line was not. He had bound himself to the surface, to Ronan’s creation now sacrificed to bring Gansey back. Adam was free of the lack of freedom his sacrifice had demanded, but the ley line had not left him. When it told him to go, he followed. He chose to this time. 

Ronan hadn't come with him. A farmer’s day started painfully early even in summer, and Adam would not ask him to leave the Barns unless he thought he needed to. Opal was still leery about cars, and Gansey, Henry and Blue - best said like that, in a single breath - were still traveling around the world, snapshots of fantastic places filtering in with the same regularity as breathing. So Adam went alone, driving down dusty Virginia turnpikes and side roads in Ronan’s - his - BMW, and wondered what it was he’d find. His last turn had taken him the closest, and the insistent tugging of the ley line informed him that it was time to leave the car behind. 

Adam parked the car off the edge of the road, careful to ensure that the tires weren’t under any undue stress while doing so. He’d budgeted out all the maintenance the BMW would require months ago, and for all that he knew Ronan would dream up replacements without being asked, he refused to take undue risks with it. He brought nothing else with him, save for the phone sitting comfortably in the pocket of his well-fitting shorts. It was a rare indulgence, and the weight of it was almost nothing. 

The forest was old, though not otherworldly. It was not clear-cut in the way some forests are; every inch of space around the curving trunks was filled with underbrush, sharp brambles and harmless ferns and everything in between. Sunlight here danced four feet off the ground, unable to get any closer. Adam surveyed it with little consternation. Brambles were nothing. He stepped forward, found and dismissed the first two options for entry, and chose the third, feet hugging the edge of a mostly-dry streambed trickling out from the treeline. He followed the streambed in, walking inside the forest without touching it, and felt the pull grow that much stronger. He was close, even if he still didn’t know what it was he was headed for. 

Fifteen minutes in the streambed veered abruptly off-course, and Adam abandoned it in favor of stepping carefully over the lowest of the underbrush. His sandy hair was plastered to his forehead in the summer heat, and the cicadas were humming loudly enough to drown out near everything else. It was another ten minutes of walking, empty-minded in the summer haze, before he knew abruptly what it was he’d come to seek.

Adam surveyed his find with a certain resigned wariness. It did not belong here; that much was certain. The ley line had… unearthed it, perhaps? Drawn it here? Regardless, it had not been meant to stay, and now it needed to be moved. Adam sighed, and bent over to pick it up. He’d wash the shirt later. 

 

“What,” Ronan said, “the shit is that?”

Adam had brought the egg into the house, depositing it on the kitchen table with a satisfied look. The black luster of it suited the room well. “I might be wrong, but I think it’s an egg.”

The look he received was withering. “No shit, Parrish. I mean what is it doing _here_.”

“I brought it.”

“I see someone woke up and decided to be an ass today.”

“You should know,” Adam said mildly. “You do that every morning.” He stepped around the table for a kiss. “Good morning, by the way. I got you an egg.”

Ronan’s expression softened, and Adam drank in the smile that lingered there instead, soft and private. Then Ronan’s attention snapped back to the find. “Is there any reason why you got me an egg? And why it’s the size of my fucking head?” Ronan eyed it. The egg remained notably unmoved by his suspicion. 

“I found it this morning,” Adam said, gesturing towards the BMW parked in the sloping driveway before the Barns. “I went for a drive, and it needed to be moved. I figured I’d bring it home.”

Ronan scratched his head, a gesture he’d picked up since he’d started letting his hair grow out again. He still kept it short, not the shoulder-length mane displayed in the childhood pictures featured prominently around the house, but it was just long enough to curl at the edges. Adam appreciated having something to hold on to. “Well, I don’t know what to do with it,” Ronan admitted. “Hell, I don’t even know what it’ll hatch.”

“If it hatches.” Adam's brow creased. “I’m not sure it will. I just knew it needed to be moved.”

Opal wandered into the room, paused at the sight of the egg, and turned abruptly towards Ronan. “Kerah,” she said, reproach clear in her high voice, “you didn’t tell me you had a dragon.”

Adam blinked. “Oh.”

“Shit,” Ronan added, staring at the egg with new eyes. A hint of a grin was playing at the sharp edges of his mouth. It was a smile that promised trouble. Adam only halfheartedly wished he didn’t find it so appealing. “C’mon, Parrish,” Ronan said, grin widening. “Time to figure out how to hatch a fucking _dragon_.”

“I’m coming too,” Opal informed them. Her pale hair was a mess today, sticking up in every direction like a tiny thundercloud. Imposing was perhaps not the right word for her, but noticeable didn’t do it justice. 

“Would anyone else like some iced tea first?” Adam asked, pulling the fridge door open and taking out the container. The forest had been hot, after all. Ronan and Opal both turned expectant gazes on him, and Adam smiled as he pulled out three glasses from the cabinet. Opal cantered away with her glass in hand as soon as she’d gotten it, but Adam knew she’d be back in time for any excitement with the egg. She had a sense for that sort of thing. 

Ronan took a long pull from his glass and Adam let his eyes settle on the motion of his throat swallowing, comfortable and allowed. Judging by the smirk peeking out of the edges of the glass, Ronan noticed him looking. Adam managed a sip of his own before Ronan pulled him close and they kissed again, hungrier this time. 

“I missed you this morning,” Ronan said, matter of fact. He worried a bit at his favorite spot on Adam’s neck, teeth darkening the near-constant bruise on display when Adam was home from college. Adam tilted his jaw back obligingly, humming at the sensation. 

“You were out with your cows, and I was only gone for a couple of hours at most,” Adam replied, running one hand up through the back of Ronan’s curls while the other settled possessively on the small of Ronan’s back. 

“Still,” Ronan said, nipping hard enough to make Adam’s breath stutter. “Tell me next time.” It sounded like a statement, but the soft pressure of Ronan’s hand on the front of Adam’s shirt made it a question.

“Okay,” Adam managed, and slid his hand lower. Ronan arched shamelessly into the motion and Adam hoped that Opal had left the house for her latest adventure. She’d seen them in more compromising positions before, but still.

“The dragon egg can wait." Ronan stripped off his shirt. His pale skin was already slick with sweat from the morning’s work, and Adam’s hands roamed over the exposed planes of Ronan’s chest without hesitation, shivering at the tattoo peeking in at the sides of his ribs. 

Adam lifted his arms slightly, inviting Ronan in. His boyfriend came willingly, lifting Adam’s shirt over his head with all the care he hadn’t displayed with his own disrobing, and then Ronan’s body pressed Adam’s against the wall, smiling against his neck. Adam’s hands were everywhere, and dipping lower. 

The dragon egg had clearly been sitting there for a while, Adam reasoned, with what little part of his mind that still could. It could wait a little longer. Then Ronan lifted Adam’s hand and pressed it against his mouth, and Adam stopped thinking entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magician and dreamer they may be, but a dragon egg is weird enough to require outside consultation. Fortunately, they know a guy.

Some time later, Adam’s skin was still steaming softly after the indulgently warm shower he’d taken in the one attached to the master bedroom. The lack of a handle used to throw him off, but Ronan had explained that it set the temperature of the water to whatever the person using it wanted at that moment. That was about as possible as the toaster working diligently downstairs without any source of power, but Ronan explaining it in a matter-of-fact tone reminded Adam that this was the Barns, and any place that had produced his boyfriend had no rules to follow whatsoever. In the months since, after coming to the Barns and leaving for college and coming back, Adam had grown to accept its idiosyncrasies and missed them when he was gone. 

Adam slung the pale blue towel around his neck and tugged up his threadbare sweats, where they rested just below his hip bones with an indolent cling. They were threadbare from constant use, not poor make, and Adam would never stop wearing them if only for the the helpless way Ronan’s gaze was tugged downwards when he saw him in them. He stepped out of the bathroom, slightly pink, and smiled as Ronan did exactly as expected. He padded over to the dresser he shared with Ronan, comfortable under the heat of his boyfriend’s gaze, and pulled out an even more careworn, faded Coca-Cola shirt before tugging it over his head. 

“So,” Ronan drawled, “you about ready to see what we can do with a dragon’s egg?”

“About as ready as I’ll ever be,” Adam replied, slipping over to press a quick kiss to the side of Ronan’s mouth, mostly because he wanted to, and because he could. Ronan returned the gesture without hesitation.

They headed downstairs together when Ronan began to laugh, snickering as he looked at Adam with a crinkle at the corner of his eyes that had only begun to appear after a year of living at the Barns without a tie in a stranglehold around his neck. “Our lives are never going to stop being weird as shit, are they,” Ronan said, not displeased. 

Adam gave him a look. “Says the dreamer.”

“Says the magician,” Ronan shot back, jerking a thumb at the egg, which had come back into the sight as they entered the kitchen. “Wasn’t me that brought that thing home, Parrish.”

Adam shrugged, ceding the point. He didn’t particularly mind their lives either. It was hard to, when he was living in a place like this, when the man he slept next to every night came awake with impossible flowers in his hands that were meant for him. 

Adam circled the table slowly, resting his hands on the egg with careful motion. He’d half-expected to find that thing hot to the touch, but it remained still and cool underneath his hands. He was tempted to get out his tarot cards, but the dragon egg wasn’t a ley line thing, merely a creature that lived on it. Or perhaps merely the potential for one. Adam was hardly an expert on figuring out the age of things, but he had a sense that this egg was rather old. 

“I don’t actually know where to go from here,” Adam admitted finally. “I brought it here because it couldn’t stay on the line, but….” He trailed off, unsure how to continue, and looked at Ronan hopefully.

“Don’t give me that look,” Ronan said, looking more amused than anything. “I just dream shit. This already _is_. That’s not my area of expertise.”

“Opal seemed to recognize it on sight, though,” Adam mused. “Do you think we should ask her about it?”

They exchanged a knowing look. It was certainly possible that Opal did know everything about dragons, but getting Ronan’s dream-satyr child to talk about anything other than what she felt like was about as likely as getting Gwenllian to speak out of verse or to admit that perhaps three layers of dresses was a bit much for a Virginia summer. It was possible, but neither Adam nor Ronan possessed the requisite patience required to do it unless it was a life-or-death situation.

“Or we could ask Dick,” Ronan suggested. “Sargent’s last text said they were in a place with decent service. I think Cheng’s flying out to meet them once he finishes his plotting with Cheng Two in Vancouver.” 

Adam brightened at this. Gansey and Blue had made their worldly travels a summer tradition, when they weren’t at home in Henrietta. Without a king to pursue, Gansey’s attentions were devoted to all the wonders of the world again, the most notable of whom held the travel itinerary in her hands. Blue had taken to throwing darts at the map-papered wall of the barn Ronan had given Gansey as a new office to determine their destination, now that Monmouth was gone. Adam winced reflectively remembering that particular fight, even though it had long since been resolved. Acting in Ronan’s best interest only worked when both parties agreed that it actually was. 

“Where’d you put that phone again?” Adam asked, glancing over at the kitchen counter where it usually rested. Ronan ducked out of the kitchen and into the living room, returning a moment later with the strangely vibrant plastic corded monstrosity in his hand. The cord dangled uselessly, not attached to anything. Or perhaps everything, given that the phone could place a call literally everywhere, and laughed at such simple limitations like cell service and international rates. Ronan had dreamt it after a particularly frustrating conversation with Gansey where the connection dropped out seven times in as many minutes. It had done little to help with Ronan’s lack of fondness for phones. Ronan tossed it underhand to Adam, who grabbed it deftly and put in the number. Adam, by unspoken agreement, handled the phone calls when he was home.

There was a faint scraping sound and some unhurried beeping, and then Adam grinned as Gansey’s voice came through crisp and clear. “Hello? Ronan, is that you? No, Adam’s home, of course it isn’t you. Adam! How are you? Is Ronan behaving?”

Adam cut off a laugh and put the phone on speaker. “Hey, Gansey,” he said, still grinning. “How’s New Zealand treating you?”

“Quite lovely, thank you,” Gansey’s voice floated back. “The mountains here are fantastic - simply tremendous, in fact. Jane’s taken it upon herself to climb every peak she sees, and I’m playing the enthusiastic climbing partner.” His voice dropped a whisper. “I do believe it’s a height thing. She sees something taller than her, and she simply must be on top of it.”

Ronan grinned at the phone from where he now stood next to Adam, sharp and happy. “Way more than I ever needed to hear about your sex life, old man.”

Blue’s voice rang through. “I can hear you, you know!”

“Ronan!” Gansey said, sounding delighted and scandalized. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. Regardless. How have you been? Blue and I have been having an absolutely wonderful time. The ley lines here are so _alive,_ you see. The things I could tell you….” And he did, with Blue interjecting a few times from somewhere near him, along with more than a few loud clanging noises that Adam suspected was a pick on rock. He was happy to listen, and Ronan was happy to lean against him while he did. Gansey’s tale meandered comfortably, and Adam’s heart ached a little for the five of them to be together again, Gansey taking the lead and Blue, intensely curious and determined, and Henry, smiling through everything and pulling them all together in a way nothing like Noah had, but with a very similar result. 

Gansey broke off suddenly. “Oh, goodness, has it been ten minutes? I’m terribly sorry, you must have called for a reason. How are things at the Barns? Has Ronan managed to offend anyone too important recently?”

“Not for lack of trying,” Adam said dryly, even as Ronan protested. Adam smiled at him, and Ronan’s hackles lowered. 

“No one here’s worth my time anymore,” Ronan complained. “The farmers all… play nice,” he said, sulking only a little. 

“Not true,” Adam reminded him. “There was that one couple - they said we were going to burn in Hell, right?”

Ronan brightened a little. “That’s true. But their crops are shit,” he said, sounding savagely pleased about it, “and no one likes them anyway. They’re terrified of me.”

“And so the world continues to turn,” Gansey said through the line, sighing.

“Anyway,” Adam said loudly, “we, ah, found something, and we were hoping you might know a little more about it, or help us find out where to look.”

“Parrish found a dragon egg on the ley line and thought it was a good idea to bring it here,” Ronan interjected bluntly. “And we don’t know shit about it.”

“A dragon egg? Really?” Gansey sounded fascinated. “That’s - well, not something I’ve ever encountered before,” he admitted. “But I won’t admit defeat just because of that. Could you send over some pictures? I’ll see if any of my usual sources know anything about it when I’m not otherwise occupied.”

“HE MEANS WHEN WE AREN’T CLIMBING THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN,” Blue shouted from somewhere near him. 

“Will do,” Adam replied, smiling. “Thanks, Gansey. Bye, Blue.”

“Piss at the top for me, will you?” Ronan added, smirking. “I’ve been meaning to mark my territory in Europe sometime.”

“Which one of us was that addressed to?” Gansey demanded. “Because I will not - Blue, _wait_ \- goodbye, you two!” 

The line cut short abruptly, and Adam stared at the phone with a bemused expression. “I guess we’re waiting a little longer, then,” he said finally.

“I’ll text Sargent some pictures,” Ronan said, glancing at the egg. He’d come to an agreement with Blue somewhere along the line, as the two of them spent the most time in Henrietta while Gansey and Adam went abroad. Blue did too, but 300 Fox Way was a part of her, and she came home often. Apparently after Ronan had ignored something like three dozen calls from her, she’d driven over and given him an ultimatum. Adam still didn’t know what the ultimatum was, but now Ronan had a phone, and when Blue texted, he answered. 

“Sounds like a plan,” Adam said, placing the phone down on the counter. He walked towards the egg again, examining it curiously. “I wonder how it got there,” he mused, more to himself than anything. 

The egg rattled a bit, and then chirped at him before falling still again. Adam and Ronan stared at it, then at each other, and then at it again. The egg chirruped obligingly. 

Ronan began to laugh. Adam cast his eyes around the kitchen desperately. “Any chance you dreamed up some fireproof gloves at some point?”

“Second drawer on the left by the sink,” Ronan said, pointing, still grinning. “Better hurry.”

Adam shook his head as the egg rattled again, and went for the gloves. What a life this was.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hatching a dragon is apparently a rather involved process.

Hatching a dragon, as it turned out, was a very involved process. For one, Adam hadn’t considered the result of putting something round on something perfectly flat, like, say, the kitchen table. In his defense, the egg had been perfectly balanced right up until it had decided to start moving.

“LEFT,” Ronan shouted, diving for the egg as it wobbled abruptly off the table. He grabbed the egg while it was in mid-air, clutching it to his chest before swearing and setting it gently on the floor. “Fuck, that thing is hot,” he snarled, blowing on his fingers. “Your turn, Parrish.”

Now properly garbed for war, Adam approached the rocking egg with dream-glove covered hands. The chirping had shifted slowly into a whine, and the pitch was increasing rapidly. Adam tested the heat warily with one hand; it was uncomfortable, but not painful. “Mind grabbing the door?” he asked, accent slipping out stronger like it always did when he was off-balance. 

They moved as one, Adam grabbing the egg as securely as he could manage just as Ronan opened the door and kicked the clutter on the porch out of the way. Adam staggered through half a second later, half-running, half-cradling the egg as he deposited on the field. It had gotten hotter the longer he’d held it, and Adam winced as the grass he’d set it on began to curl and smoke. 

“We might not have thought this through,” Adam said wearily. A cow on the other side of the field mooed in agreement, edging her calf away from the smoke. 

“You think?” Ronan asked, not unkindly. He stooped low and picked up a bucket from the porch and stomped back into the kitchen, emerging a minute later with it full to the brim. “Lift it up for a second,” he ordered, eyes sharp. Adam complied, ignoring the discomfort for the few seconds it took Ronan to thoroughly drench the grass beneath it. Adam settled it down again, and Ronan eyed the no-longer-smoking grass with an air of deep satisfaction. He had avoided soaking the egg for a reason; anything that heated up the closer it got to hatching probably wouldn’t handle water very well. 

Adam saw a flash of white by the side of the nearest barn. Opal was watching, albeit from a safe distance and apparently chewing on a dreamed daisy the size of her face. She caught him looking and mouthed _“Kerah”_ at him before unconcernedly sticking the rest of the daisy into her mouth. She didn’t look too worried about the dragon’s impending birth, so Adam relaxed a little. He stepped carefully around the egg and next to Ronan, preferring a united front even for something as unusual as this. 

The egg continued to rock back and forth on the grass, the whining growing in pitch until it sounded more like the whistle of a teakettle when the water had finished boiling. The black finish of the egg had warmed in color as well, now a muddy, sanguine red that showcased what looked like veins running all about the edges. Adam had a moment to admire the pattern before a sharp crack resounded, orange lines spiderwebbing from the top as something inside forced its way through. Ronan tensed beside him, battle-ready with nothing more than the chewed leather bands on his wrists and an empty bucket, and Adam watched with open curiosity.

Adam’s first thought as the creature spilled out was that he really hadn’t expected dragons to have beaks. 

His second thought was that there really wasn’t very much threatening about what appeared to be a cat-sized raisin with floppy purple brown wings folded limply at its side. It was not a pretty creature like Adam had for some reason expected. There was very little majestic about the gaping beak, the stubby claws, the folds of skin that seemed more like leather than scales. The dragon let out another dying teakettle noise, and Ronan huffed out a sigh that sounded suspiciously delighted. He approached the dragon with one bare hand, and the dragon blindly groped at him with a beak that really wasn’t very sharp at all. Ronan ruffled the creature’s head lightly with the hand not presently being investigated, and the tenderness of the gesture reminded Adam of the early days of Chainsaw. Somehow he’d forgotten to factor in Ronan’s crippling weakness for baby animals, but here was the smile to prove it. 

“Don’t move,” Adam said, grinning. “Blue’ll love this.” He pulled out his phone from his pocket, snapping a few pictures of Ronan unmistakably cuddling the newly-hatched dragon to his chest. The sweltering heat of the dragon’s birth had vanished, judging by Ronan’s decided lack of flinching. 

“Asshole,” Ronan replied, flicking his eyes and the full force of his soft smile up at Adam for a moment before returning his attention to the dragon. It was making little snuffling noises now, and Ronan hummed. “It’s probably hungry,” he said, removing his finger as the dragon chomped weakly in its general direction. “What do you think, Parrish? Meat?”

“Your guess is better than mine,” Adam said, content to sit on the grass himself and watch Ronan all but coo at the creature. It really was an adorable sight. “One of us is the farmer here, Lynch, and it’s not me. I’m just a helpless college student.”

“Don’t sound so damn pleased about being useless,” Ronan grumbled, then flinched as the dragon lunged for his hand again, its eyes still firmly shut. “The little fucker wants my hand,” he said, sounding almost proud about it. “I’m guessing meat. Mind giving up on burgers tonight?”

“Feels like a corn and chicken night anyway,” Adam remarked, rising to his feet after taking another three pictures for teasing and posterity and smiling when he was alone in his dorm hundreds of miles away. Ronan had been defrosting the ground beef since morning, the bloody package sitting on a platter next to the sink. Adam grabbed the package and brought it out with him. He took the dream-gloves off and then offered a hunk of raw, bloody meat to the little dragon, fingers carefully held back to avoid losing them. It snuffled the air once, and then snapped unerringly at the meat, tearing off a tiny piece of it before wiggling its neck to force it down. 

“Look at that,” Adam said, smiling. “A symbol of power and fear all across the world, eating our dinner.”

“And making a mess in the process,” Ronan said, frowning as the dragon bit off more than it could handle in its fervor, dropping bloody bits of meat all over Ronan’s shirt. “I just washed this,” Ronan complained. “Next time you feel like being a slob, eat over the trash,” he said, glaring at the little dragon. It ignored him in favor of doing the exact same thing a second time, making all sorts of uncomfortable gobbling noises as it did so. Ronan paused a second later, eyes widening. He glanced at Adam entreatingly.

“No,” Adam said sternly, but he could feel his grin betraying him.

“Yes,” Ronan replied, grin wide and happy. Adam had stayed for that smile, soft-edged and trusting. “C’mon, Parrish, _please_?”

Adam sighed. “You really want to do this? Don’t you think it deserves a better name?”

“It looks like a half-finished attempt at drawing a raisin,” Ronan pointed out, though he made that sound like a good thing. “If it gets any cooler, we can pick something else.” 

They both knew they wouldn’t, but the sentiment was nice. 

“Fine.”

“Thanks, Parrish,” Ronan said, grinning again. “I’ll blow you later for this.”

“You’d do that anyway,” Adam pointed out.

Ronan ignored Adam’s logic in favor of pointing an imperious finger at the dragon now curled up on his chest. “Alright, you little brat,” Ronan said, sounding about as intimidating as he looked, “your name is Trashcan.”

The dragon meeped at him.

Ronan grinned savagely. “It’s settled, then.”

“I wonder what it says about me,” Adam said, fond, “that I love you even now.”

“That you have terrible taste, probably,” Ronan replied, unconcerned. “Love you too, by the way.” The dragon meeped again. “See? Trashcan loves you too.”

It really was a very ugly dragon. Adam looked at it resting on Ronan’s chest, the way Ronan’s smile softened at the edges and his fingers fluttered along the creature’s spine. That, Adam supposed, was worth it.


End file.
